A circling of buzzards

The liberals are circling overhead, anticipating Karl Rove's political death. Were it a regular CIA bureaucrat suspected of "leaking" Valerie Plame's name, big media would mention this story only in passing. Had suspicion fallen on a prominent CIA official appointed by Clinton, we'd hardly hear a peep about this. There would have been as much media attention as there was over Clinton's national security advisor, Sandy Berger, sneaking out classified documents in his clothes.

But we're talking about Karl Rove here. Liberals won't admit it, but they're energized purely by the possibility of revenge. Revenge against the man who chiefly engineered Bush's underestimated re-election campaign that should have lost ignominiously but instead triumphed brilliantly. Revenge against the man who hit too close to home when he said, "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."

John Podhoretz in his latest New York Post column deservedly pointed to what he suggested in October 2003: Rove mentioned Wilson's wife, but not necessarily Valerie Plame by name, to keep Time reporter Matthew Cooper straight on who authorized Wilson's trip to Niger. Today, that's not far at all from the latest details. Even Cooper's e-mails say, "'it was, [Rove] said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD..."

I apologize for not plugging this website before: bugmenot.com. Many of you probably know it already, but it has logins available for all the news websites, including the New York Post, that want registration even for their free content. This way you won't have to go through tedious registration processes.

Byron York's new NRO column also does a superb job of putting the new details together. Bottom line: Rove didn't do it out of malice, contrary to what liberals want to believe.

Then I went back to what Don Luskin wrote in July 2003. That's how I learned of the scandal in the first place, because major media principally ignored what was then a non-story. Lest some think me obsequious, I'll put it this way: Luskin can call the shots in more than just investment markets. A couple of his good points long preceded what Mark Levin echoed on his radio show Tuesday evening. Was any real harm done to Plame, and just how secret was her identity? Bingo.

The real clincher is how the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (Title 50, Chapter 15, Subchapter IV, Section 421 of the U.S. Code) defines the crime: the person revealing the identity of a covert government agent must be cognizant that the government is taking measures to keep the identity covert. Did Rove know she was trying to keep her identity secret as a CIA operative?

Joe Biden said, "The fact that he didn't give her name, but identified the ambassador's wife — doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who that is." Well, according to Levin's sources (whom I forget right now), Plame and her husband were known for gallavanting around Washington. Robert Novak, in his Oct. 1, 2003 column, said, "It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA."

Now check out Podhoretz's blogging at National Review Online's The Corner:

What if -- and here's where it gets really interesting -- what if the real object of interest where Fitzgerald's investigation is concerned is now none other than the jailed Judith Miller of the New York Times? What if she let it all slip and in the giant game of telephone around the nation's capital, Miller was the original source of the "Plame's in the CIA" info? What if Fitzgerald needs her notes to discern whether Miller knew or didn't know of Plame's supposedly covert status?

As he said, "Chew on that for a while."

Finally we have Ted Rall, perennially ignorant of the Constitution, claiming that Rove committed treason. Comparing him to Aldrich Ames? Just what is the liberal "reality-based community" smoking?